Fandom Unpacked

How the GRAMMYs Cultivate a Passionate Fanbase Year-Round

• Situation • Season 1 • Episode 1

Share episode

The relationship between artists and fans has undergone a dramatic transformation in recent years, and no one understands this evolution better than John Loken, EVP at The Recording Academy. In this captivating episode of Fandom Unpacked, we dive deep into how modern musicians are building authentic connections with their audiences in ways previously unimaginable.

Gone are the days when performers were untouchable deities separated from their admirers. Today's most successful artists embrace vulnerability and transparency, using social media not just as a promotional tool but as a platform for genuine conversation. John and host Damian Bazadona share fascinating examples of this shift, from Travis Scott publicly denouncing VIP ticket holders at his own concert to Lana Del Rey stopping mid-show to interact personally with individual fans. These moments aren't just spontaneous gestures—they represent a fundamental reimagining of the artist-fan relationship.

The Recording Academy and its GRAMMY Awards occupy a unique position in this new landscape. As John explains, unlike fan-voted awards, the Grammys reflect the choices of roughly 13,000 music professionals, creating an interesting dynamic where they must simultaneously engage with both industry insiders and passionate fan communities. When nominations are announced, marketers must carefully navigate the expectations of different artist fandoms, knowing that for every celebrated winner, seven other artists and their devoted followers will face disappointment.

John also describes how organizations can sustain engagement beyond once-a-year award shows. By shifting narratives toward advocacy work in areas like artificial intelligence regulation and creator rights, The Recording Academy transforms casual followers into dedicated supporters invested in the music industry's future. This approach recognizes that today's fans want more than just entertainment—they seek meaningful connections with the artists and institutions they support.

Ready to understand how fandom is reshaping music and entertainment? Join us for this revealing conversation that will forever change how you think about your favorite artists and the passionate communities that surround them.

Recorded Tuesday, October 22nd, 2024
Host: Damian Bazadona, CEO & Founder, Situation
Guest:  John Loken, EVP of Marketing, The Recording Academy
Producer: Peter Yagecic, Innovation Advisor, Situation

Peter Yagecic:

What was it about the modern fan, or modern fandom, that called to you as a topic that you wanted to try to unpack in this Q&A style?

Damian Bazadona:

We have so many clients across such a wide range of industries in the entertainment and media space, from theater and entertainment to media to sports. The unifying element of that is fandom, and so I think we all can learn a little bit of something from somebody else. And so we have access to so many smart folks, and I think it's a gift to be able to sort of say can we bring all these smart people together, have conversations? We can all learn a bit from each other.

Peter Yagecic:

You're listening to Fandom Unpacked, the podcast, an audio version of our regular live stream series where we unpack modern fandom with some of the brightest minds in sports. And Thank you what the Grammys can teach us about fandom. Here's Damian and John, so John is. I've known John for years.

Damian Bazadona:

I think we met back at Ticketmaster days, but he's executive vice president at the Recording Academy and a key player at the Grammy Awards. You know, before we actually get into fandom around the Grammys, just as an icebreaker, aside from music, just out of curiosity, what are you a fan of? I like to hear people's kind of internal fandom and what lights you up.

John Loken:

Is there a world outside of music? No, I think of fandom as kind of anything that you're passionate about, and I think with social media and just sort of the digital age in general, we have a platform to express those passions and to dive deeply into those passions. So, for example, I'm a total nerd about into sneakers. You could be into whatever you know, some super obscure type of literature Like it's all there available to you, and I know we're going to talk about this with the Grammys and with music fandom. But it's a wonderful world to have eclectic. It's a wonderful time to have eclectic taste and be interested in a broad spectrum of things.

Damian Bazadona:

Will the Dodgers beat the Yankees?

John Loken:

Absolutely.

Damian Bazadona:

This meeting's over. All right, let's take us inside the Recording Academy. And because the Grammys obviously are the shiny object and obviously a substantial part of it, but it'd be helpful, I think, sort of set the table for context. I know you have an awesome team from behind the scenes, also on the marketing and social media front. You got to do a lot of work, but it'd be helpful just to set the context a little bit more about the Recording Academy, if you can.

John Loken:

Yeah, a lot of people know us for the Grammys but they don't know that there's a nonprofit behind the Grammys called the Recording Academy. It's an organization, a professional organization, that's been around for 67 years, founded in 1957. And the Grammy Awards which the first telecast was in 1958, has been the sort of we think of it as the graduation ceremony that follows an entire year of activity. We have about 22,000 members across 12 chapters across the US. It breaks down roughly 13,000 people who vote on the Grammy Awards. They're qualified to be voters, we can talk about that. There's another 3,000 to 4,000 who are professional members and then we have about 6,000 to 7,000 Grammy U members. These are both students who are matriculated at university and it's a six-year program. So from the time you're a freshman and you join Grammy U, you can stay through your college experience and then, two years after um, we just opened that up to non-matriculated young people who are under 29, but who are actively pursuing a career in music.

John Loken:

Um, and the way I tend to think about this and the way we think about this in marketing is um. We think that brand impact is a formula and it's really about the reach that you have and the reputation that you have and those two sort of reinforce one another. Grammys is obviously a huge moment of reach. We've been getting more and more people each year now to actually watch linear television, that big black rectangle in your mom's living room. But it's about the reputation and the work that we do and the mission that we have, which is to advocate for music, people and to serve them, and that's really our purpose. So it's those two things working in concert with one another year round.

Damian Bazadona:

That's what the marketing team does how do you so take me into the your team's approach to building fandom around kind of all activities with the recording academy so like? So in one respect I would imagine you spend significant efforts to build fandom around the award show itself, but at the same time I would imagine a significant part of your role is about engaging, like the tens of millions of social followers from the nominated artists. Like, how do you navigate that in terms of where most of your efforts spent in sort of capturing fandom and how you think about it For sure.

John Loken:

I mean, when you get your nominated list of artists and we're going to have our big nominations live stream on november 8th, that's almost the casting, if you will, for your story and for the narratives that follow from november 8th to february 2nd, when our, when our, telecast happens, um, so it's a natural thing to say, okay, we've got. I don't know yet, but we will probably have nominated music from, you know, taylor, swift, from billy eilish, from beyonce. You would be derelict in your duties as a marketer if you didn't somehow figure out how to tap into those audiences, because they're not only massive audiences, they're extremely fervent, right, it's an extremely active audience. And what's kind of cool about a lot of this, too, is certain artists have become really savvy about creating lores and legends within their ecosystem, you know. So it's not just I put out an album and I go on tour, it's I drop different little easter eggs and putting out singles, videos, posts. Our job is to tap into that and to harness that.

John Loken:

And what's sometimes tricky about it is people don't really think about it this way. But if you have eight artists nominated for record of the year, say, for every one artist who wins right, whose dreams come true on that night and the dreams of their fans come true on that night. You have seven artists whose dreams are crushed and you have seven fandoms whose dreams are crushed. And so we feel that we as a brand feel that big time in our socials because people get, they take it very personally. You know they. I mean half of half of our social posts. You know there's always somebody who comments you know justice for nikki or whatever, like um, listen, this is, this is the reality of a fandom, and so we try to harness it. We try to tell a positive story. Um, certainly we're very active in that sense from that sort of November through February period.

John Loken:

But the other thing I would definitely point out is we spent a lot of time over the last few years thinking about the 22,000 members, right, this kind of core nucleus. A lot of these are very celebrated artists and personalities and creators and influencers in their own right. Many of them get nominated. Many of them have won lots of Grammys. That's a different type of fandom that we need to tap into. We've always historically avoided shining the spotlight on voting members, because people who are voting don't want to get inundated with for your consideration. Campaigns, consideration, um campaigns, but um. What we found this year anyway is that the new voting members are extremely proud to have made it into that echelon, and we've used a lot of that content in social as well. People are sharing their excitement about what's coming up this Grammy season.

Damian Bazadona:

Just talk, just can we talk through some of the, the uh called the, the attributes of the fan bases that you think kind of get it right and we don't need to name names as much. You'll feel free, I suppose. But but really I feel like you've you see, the ones, the fan bases, that you just feel like there's a either a deep connection or they just have the ability to, I don't know, drive them to action, like, are there any attributes? You see that you kind of like learnings you could take from that that you feel like you could share.

John Loken:

Yeah, that's a great question, Um, I hadn't really thought about it, but I think that, um, vulnerability and just being very transparent about who you are, I think we're seeing something really interesting playing out right now with Chapel Roan. Um, you've seen this in sports. You've seen this in a few different areas, where people are willing to be a little bit more kind of hard on their sleeve and talk about the things that they're thrilled about, but also to talk again very authentically, about the things that they're worried about, including their mental wellness. That's part of it, I think, a big part of it. For anybody who publishes in social media, whether you're an artist or the Grammy Awards, it has to be a conversation.

John Loken:

I think what we've really seen over the last few years is and by that I mean a two-way dialogue right, we actually just hired a social content producer whose sole responsibility is to engage with the community. And again, the next time somebody says you know justice for Nikki, ask them what that means you know and use it as an opportunity. Again, we're not trying to persuade people, but if we could educate them even just a little bit about how the process works and to maybe take a little bit of the venom out of some of that. I think that is hugely helpful.

Peter Yagecic:

Fandom Unpacked is brought to you by Situation, an award-winning marketing agency built for live entertainment that champions the power of unforgettable shared experiences around the world. We offer full marketing and creative services for experience-based brands in live entertainment, attractions, theater, sports, arts and culture, and more. Check us out at SituationInteractivecom. Now back to our Q&A.

Damian Bazadona:

I took my son to a Travis Scott concert at MetLife Stadium two weeks ago or something like that, and you know I got up to speed with a lot of his music and stuff. But what's fascinating to me, during the concert he looked about halfway through. He looks at the VIP deck and points at them and says I hate VIPs, I hate you Like, I hate you pretty much Right, right, the whole place goes nuts and I think even people in the VIP section were like you're right, they spent thousands of dollars, right, and it is to his the of how he carries himself and how he thinks about, like, connecting with people. So the idea of the idea, the idea of VIP, even though they exist, it was a fascinating but yet makes total sense with him, with Travis Scott in particular, which I think he could see, the love from the, the audience, the whole stadium, um, it was kind of fascinating to me. I said what other, what other you know field can you do that where you blast the people who spend the most money on your brand?

John Loken:

Well, it's funny, I was getting dragged to Lana Del Rey concerts because my girlfriend just is a super fan, she's a complete nut, and Lana does something really interesting in the middle of her show. She will just stop the music and she will get off the stage and she'll just start talking to fans one-on-one, and they're giving her flowers and you know, the other 12,000, 18,000 people are kind of like what are we doing? But again, it's really about holding space. It's about having this direct connection that says and this is, by the way, I think it's remarkable, this is completely different from the world, certainly that I grew up in.

John Loken:

The world I grew up in, you would buy a ticket to go see a band that you loved at a stadium or an arena and there was such a distance, right, there was such a kind of a mystery and we thought these people were gods right. And again, same in sports separation between the life of that deity right and me as a commoner, as a fan, and all of that. I think social drives us right. All of that has been erased. Um, where, uh, the artists who get it and who do well, absolutely just embrace it and to a sometimes, you know, really interesting and odd extent, uh, peter, I think we have a question we do.

Peter Yagecic:

Well, I'm going to. First of all, when you told that story about the I hate VIPs, I thought you were saying your son was saying that and I was going to say that's a different conversation.

Damian Bazadona:

And trust me, we did not buy the VIP ticket.

Peter Yagecic:

Well, I wanted to pull on something, john, that you said a little bit about you. I wanted to pull on something, john, that you said a little bit about the Easter eggs that artists are creating in their songs and their videos and their social media posts, and relate it to what you said about the role that you just hired to do the production and help you guys out with your social media and engage in that conversation. Is crafting these kinds of engagements something that a lot of artists want to embrace themselves, like Lana Del Rey having those one-on-one conversations, or are they outsourcing it? And do you have any sense of what's the risk there of somebody finding out that you weren't really talking to the artist but that you were talking to their social media team?

John Loken:

you know their social media team. From my experience, it used to be that it was the rarity, the artist who really wanted to authentically engage. And you started to see this change around 2003,. 2004, with Friendster and then MySpace, where the savvier musicians I used to be in. At that time I ran an independent label that was all about punk rock and we had bands out on the Warped Tour and it was the ones who would really embrace that 20 years ago.

John Loken:

You know, from an artist or a creator perspective, this is a new muscle. This is a completely different sort of way of being. You know you create art, of course, but now you also are creating community. Essentially, fast forward 20 years now. The exception is the artist who doesn't really want to get involved, not to call people out. You do see sometimes in the social media feeds of some of the older, maybe more traditional artists where it's pretty clear they're not the ones with their you know, thumbs on the on the screen, um, but uh, I would say the majority now are absolutely hands-on. And if they're not directly hands-on, again, like if you're beyonce, you have a team, um, but you're almost certainly involved in those decisions as to what is being posted each day, each week. You would never kind of take your eyes and hands off of that process.

Peter Yagecic:

Got it. One of the questions that came in from our attendees was about recognition. So at award shows many artists make sure they thank their fans first and foremost, like at the Grammys, for whatever recognition they just received. Has there been an evolution in the ways that music artists think thank their fans in recent years beyond the shout out from the podium? How are you seeing any trends in maybe using social media platforms for artists to take that thanks even further to their fans?

John Loken:

I will say that this is a peculiar question to answer for the Recording Academy and the Grammys specifically, because our award is not a fan award, unlike People's Choice. Unlike, I think, the VMAs is voted on by fans. I think the American Music Awards, if I'm not mistaken, used to be voted on by fans. Ours isn't. Music Awards, if I'm not mistaken, used to be voted on by fans. Ours isn't. So I actually wish that when people got up, they would thank the 13,000 people who voted for them, and some of them do Again. You see this a little bit more with the Oscars, with the Emmys, where they will thank the Academy, literally the musicians, in our case, the creators who voted for them.

John Loken:

But I do think that this is part of what we're talking about, which is artists recognize, um, that fans pay their bills. I mean it's ironic to hear that travis is yelling or calling out the vip, uh folks, because those are absolutely the people that are helping him buy his fourth mansion in Telluride or whatever. I think, as the live side of the business has really come to dominate how at least that top sort of 1% or 5% of artists makes their money, they absolutely shout out to the fans because these are the people that buy tickets, and 75% of the income for these folks is derived from live touring and sponsorship, and all of that is fan-driven. So I think, if anything, we're just going to see that kind of trend increase where it's just more and more about the people that got you there and they recognize that.

Damian Bazadona:

Yeah, I also in the Travis Scott concert, the. What I also I appreciate is he put a lot of his fans up on stage and let them rage on stage and it just it's. It does scream of authenticity, of like to his core base. It's kind of remarkable. It's an incredible show Recognizing. There's a crazy pass there. How do you, how do you transform casual engagers into diehard fans? You're in organizations going year-round. You have this obviously major Grammys moment. How do you kind of keep up the engagement ongoing? And so how do you think about that? Because everyone looks forward to the award show and then the award show's over and your job and your entire team's job. It's like how, how do you think about that? Because you know everyone looks forward to the award show and then the award show is over and your job and your entire team's job. It's like how do we keep that pulse going?

John Loken:

Obviously, following the telecast, our storytelling changes and we start to focus more on the work that we do for music makers year round, the ability to harness all that interest right, whether I started following you because I'm part of the beehive or I started following you because you know I'm a Swifty or whatever. But now you've got my attention and now I see that you're in Washington DC advocating for the rights of human music creators. Well, what's that? What's that about? Oh, well, turns out that artificial intelligence is potentially quite risky to the distribution and creation of music. Oh, tell me more. So, whether it's through our email network or social followership, we have been able to shift a little bit and to talk about that and shine the spotlight on that as a means to retain the new followers. As a means to retain the new followers, and so far so good. We've seen much lower attrition rates over the last six months than we typically do. So I think every brand is different. Our brand is incredibly episodic, you know.

John Loken:

Last thing I'll just say is it's really tricky. The analogy I always give is imagine you're the manager of the Gap and you're at this mall and your store. Your Gap is only open for business one day a year, and so you have to make all of your product decisions, your staffing decisions, your pricing decisions, your advertising decisions, everything based on one little window of data. Based on one little window of data. And then the store closes and then you have to start planning for your big one-day sale the next year. It's hard and you don't have time to iterate in real time. There is no real time. It's one day, essentially. Peter, do you want to take these?

Peter Yagecic:

Yeah, we got a couple more questions that have come in. It seems like there's a shift now where in the past entertainers would open themselves up more, hire a team, et cetera to connect with fans. Now it seems entertainers' celebrity status is forming as social following grows and then they break into different outlets. Do you think the change in how celebrities build their fame has impacted the way fans engage them?

John Loken:

100%. We think of artists like lady gaga, um, now as much as an actress, as a musician, um, you know, and and travis, and and rihanna with fenty, like there's all these different examples now where, because they move into these sort of adjacent spaces, there's new opportunities for fandom. Literally, the fandom itself can become richer. So I may not be a fan of someone's music, but I love their sneaker line, so it really does expand the sphere pretty dramatically.

Peter Yagecic:

Yeah, or maybe they started with a podcast and then moved into exactly. Exactly Um. Another question from uh wanted to get in here. The Grammys have so many categories and some are very specific types of music. How do you help the less mainstream celebrate their fandoms? This?

John Loken:

is so cool.

John Loken:

It almost seems like y'all have been following me around in my calendar for the last week because this has literally all been discussed in meetings within the last few days.

John Loken:

We did a call I think it was Monday or sorry, it was last Monday with the independent music community, the Sunday morning called the premier ceremony.

John Loken:

That's where we give out 84 Grammy awards.

John Loken:

That's sort of the non-telecast awards, and in that you have the classical field, you have the jazz field, you have country, you have rap, you have jazz, you have all these different categories, and so it is fandom writ large, because these are kind of silos, right, I mean there's some Venn diagram between classical fans and hip-hop fans, but it's not huge, and so it's really a place where you have to tell sort of individual stories targeted to those niches. Our solution for this is that we want to invite just in the case of the independent music scene, we want to invite more of the independent media into the premiere ceremony and possibly into our social feeds leading in, so that some of these little niches, these communities, these micro-communities, feel like they're a part of the bigger Grammy story. To me, it's not about the size of the audience, it's about the passion and the noise that that audience can make, and how authentic they are to their, to their, community damian, anything else that you wanted to try to hit on before we start wrapping up?

Damian Bazadona:

no, I think we got through most of the questions, which is awesome. I thank you everyone for submitting the questions. I feel like we covered a lot and and I would just say john is always giving with his time, we go way back and I feel like we've geeked out on experiential live theater, sports, you name it. He brings just an awesome curiosity and generosity. So I genuinely appreciate your time and I feel like we might have to pull you back for a part two after the show. We could do kind of a before and after. Let's appreciate it. Thank you.

John Loken:

Well, thank you guys. This is a really fun opportunity, and do add me to the list because I want to come back and join more of these.

Peter Yagecic:

That's going to do it for this episode of Fandom Unpacked the podcast. If you liked what you heard, please be sure to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Find out how to join us live for an upcoming recording at SituationLivecom slash fan. We'll see you next time, true believers.